Work Text:
The sky was slowly growing dark, the bleeding colours of sunset dimming into a tranquil dark blue.
The room glowed with gentle orange lamplight. Cao Chunhua was wrapped in their warm winter clothes and two blankets, bored out of their mind as they waited for Ge Chen to stop fiddling with his wooden blocks and finally pay attention to them. It was futile, unfortunately; once Ge Chen was focused on something, nothing could break his concentration.
Except exhaustion, evidently. Even before the sun began to set, he was already becoming more clumsy with his tools, the pile of discarded, indecipherable wooden figures next to him growing even more steadily than it was earlier. Unsurprising, considering that he was at it for a long while without any rest for either his hands or eyes, too engrossed in the idea he was trying to bring into reality.
Ge Chen hissed out a curse as the carving tool slipped past the wood and sliced into the skin of his palm, — for the third time. He quickly pressed the injured hand against his lips to catch the blood.
“Well, well,” Cao Chunhua said as placatingly as possible, reaching over to pluck the carving tool out of Ge Chen’s other hand. “It looks like you should give it up for today.”
“But I almost got it!” he protested. He tried to snatch it back, but Cao Chunhua dodged easily and gave him a half-amused, half-exasperated look.
“I almost believed you.” They smiled. “But there is nothing wrong with taking a small break and replenishing your strength.”
“I don’t need a break,” Ge Chen huffed, still making lacklustre grabbing motions at Cao Chunhua. “Give it back, I’ll finish up.”
“You said that back when the sun was still out,” Cao Chunhua pouted. “And now it’s getting dark.”
“The sun goes down quickly in the winter,” Ge Chen countered.
“Not that quickly.” Cao Chunhua sniffed. “And to think I spent my precious time visiting you! I don’t have that much free time, you know.”
Ge Chen had the tact to look a little guilty. “I know, but I have the idea —”
“I dressed up nicely and everything, —”
“— it will be similar to a kite, but smaller, and more fuel-efficient, —”
“—I thought we could finally do something fun together —”
“— I just want to finish this before I forget, and, — oh,” Ge Chen looked down and picked up the exact same carving tool Cao Chunhua was currently holding hostage. “Never mind, I have another one.”
Cao Chunhua sputtered and considered throwing the one in their hands out of the window. Then they considered storming out of the room in a huff, but took one look at the heater rumbling quietly next to the low table and changed their mind. Ge Chen was infuriating when he had his mind so set on something, but his inventions did always end up being incredibly useful.
That did not mean, however, that Cao Chunhua was willing to forgive him. They schooled their face into the most affronted expression they could muster and dramatically turned away from him with a “hmph!” His sheepish laugh went completely ignored.
However, Cao Chunhua quickly got bored of being petty; sitting in complete silence while staring at the far wall was even less interesting than the alternative. Defeated, they turned back and sighed, surrendering to their fate. The two of them may not have gotten to do anything today besides a short walk in the morning, but there was always tomorrow. Cao Chunhua will absolutely ban him from any carving tools tomorrow.
A loud clacking noise drew their attention. Ge Chen muttered something and picked up the fallen tool, then stubbornly tried to carve into the wooden block again. It was beginning to look like splintered tree stump, a sight sorry enough to make Cao Chunhua feel a little bad for it.
“A-Chen,” they murmured, putting their hand over his. “That’s enough.”
“But I…” Ge Chen then said something completely indecipherable, words slurring together. All Cao Chunhua could make out was the word “design”.
“You can fix the design later,” they said, fingers wandering to pry the carving tool out of Ge Chen’s hand. After a short while of silent struggle, they managed to slip it out of his grip and let it clatter to the floor. Ge Chen stared at the fallen tool, then at their still joined hands, and finally looked at Cao Chunhua. Actually looked at them for the first time all evening.
“We…?” He looked completely lost. “We’re holding hands?”
Cao Chunhua stared at him. Ge Chen blinked, then remembered his instrument and started looking around for it, and that would not do.
“Yes, yes, we are holding hands,” they said quickly and tugged on his hand. He looked up again, startled. “You are not allowed to let go, either.”
He stared at their hands thoughtfully, then frowned. “But… I’m doing… something…”
“Can you do it with one hand?” Ge Chen paused, then shook his head. “Then you can do it later! It will still be here when you come back.”
With each blink, it took longer and longer for him to open his eyes again. “But… it’s work…”
“Is today not a free day for you?” Cao Chunhua pursed their lips. “Instead of working on your day off, it would do you a lot of good to get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep now,” Ge Chen said stubbornly.
Cao Chunhua’s eye twitched. “Why not?”
“If I don’t do it now, I…” he frowned, losing his train of thought. “I’ll… hm.”
“If you sleep, you will remember what it was,” Cao Chunhua supplied helpfully. To punctuate their point, they pulled on his arm as hard as they could, trying to get him on his feet. Ge Chen swayed in place, but otherwise refused to budge.
“No, I just… need to think more!” he insisted. “There was that idea… what was it…”
Cao Chunhua’s patience was running thin. “If you don’t get settled in bed yourself, I will make you do it.”
“You won’t,” Ge Chen huffed.
They did.
To Ge Chen’s credit, he fell asleep shortly after he was wrestled into bed, head slipping off the pillow and the blanket bunched haphazardly somewhere off to the side, but it was better than nothing. Cao Chunhua had to cling to him with all of their limbs to drag him into laying down, and they were now stuck there; if they tried to remove the arm they threw over his waist, he started shifting. The last thing they needed right now was for him to wake up too soon and try to get back to his wooden blocks without them.
Cao Chunhua sighed loudly and pressed their forehead between his shoulder blades, surrendering to their sleeping position. At least it was warm like this, and in a way, it did count as spending time together, too.
Hopefully, they will be able to convince him to go out once he is awake.